Review: Carnival liberty – september 20, 2015 – southern itinerary out of san juan,

[pghsteelerfan]

Sailing away from St. Maarten continued...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pghsteelerfan]

Thank you SOOOOO much for this wonderful review, I check in a few times a day to see your updates. The pictures are bringing back memories of cruises past and getting me more and more psyched for an upcoming cruise on Liberty!

 

When will you be sailing on Liberty? I am SO jealous!!! :D We really had a great time and I think this ranks in out top cruises, ever. We love Liberty and this is definitely my favorite itinerary.

 

Thank you so much for following along and I'm glad that you are enjoying the memories of your past cruises and getting psyched for your upcoming Liberty cruise. :)

[pghsteelerfan]

Sailing away from St. Maarten continued...

 

 

 

 

A lot of others have the same idea...aft (back) of Liberty has the best views when leaving St. Maarten

 

 

[pghsteelerfan]

Sailing away from St. Maarten continued...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pghsteelerfan]

Sailing away from St. Maarten continued...

 

 

 

 

 

This was the calmest water I've ever seen while on a cruise

 

[SenatorsFan]

Hi Heather,

 

I wish I could answer that but I'm not sure if they are still there or not. They really do sound good though. I didn't even look to see what else was there since we had our minds on the Guavaberry Rum slushies. There are a few other stands in that area and I just went through the rest of the St. Maarten pictures (the ones that I didn't add in the review) to see if I got any pictures of those little stands to see if I can make out if it was there, (and also attach for you), but I don't. One of the things that I forgot to get a picture of. I'll post the question in the next post though. The others that were on "that other" roll call with us are following and one of them may know. I have never seen anyone else mention those either.

 

I was thinking the exact same thing about the resort at Divi Little Bay when we were sailing out that it would be a great place to stay and watch the cruise ships coming in and leaving. I was wondering if the people we were talking to that were actually staying there were still on the beach and watching us leave. :)

 

Thank you again for following along and glad you're enjoying it. :)

 

Holly

 

Thanks anyway, Holly, it was a long shot that you would have noticed. :) It's been a few years now, and you've also commented on how things change from one cruise to the next. You've been so kind answering people's questions so I thought I would take a chance and ask you mine. :)

Heather

[pghsteelerfan]

Sailing away from St. Maarten continued...

 

 

 

We spent almost an hour on Panorama Deck 10 getting pictures as we sailed away. When we were past St. Maarten, we were able to see the island of Anguilla. It didn’t appear to be as mountainous as the other islands in the vicinity. We had been looking for “B” and “M”, but never saw them. A lot of people would be packing, so we assumed that could be why we didn’t see them. By now sunset was approaching and, just like when leaving St. Kitts, the best views would be from the front of Liberty. DH and I went down to the secret deck for sunset pictures and it was a beautiful one. I didn’t have my zoom lens with me for the DSLR and I kind of regret that now. Not only for the actual sunset but also for pictures of Saba since we were getting close. I was able to get pictures of Saba and cropped those so it would look like a zoom lens view, but the difference between an actual zoom lens and a cropped picture is that a zoom lens picture would be clear, whereas my cropped pictures appear “grainy”. I’ll be sure to remember next time.

 

 

 

Pictures of the sunset from the secret deck on Empress Deck 7...

 

 

 

 

See the other island in the distance? That's Anguilla.

 

 

 

 

 

Saba

 

 

 

 

[pghsteelerfan]

Thanks anyway, Holly, it was a long shot that you would have noticed. :) It's been a few years now, and you've also commented on how things change from one cruise to the next. You've been so kind answering people's questions so I thought I would take a chance and ask you mine. :)

Heather

 

Thank you Heather. It's funny how things do change from one cruise to the next, but I'm hoping someone else will be able to give us a definite answer. Our friends that were on the cruise also got a lot of pictures, so they may have one, or may even know the answer. They've been great with helping me if I can't answer something. :) I'm happy to answer any question. Others have helped me in the past when I've had questions and I've had plenty. :D

 

Holly

[SenatorsFan]

I just had a question that I'm not able to answer and need some help with. "J", "K", "L"...anyone else. At the cruise center in St. Maarten near where the Guavaberry Rum stand is, does anyone else know if there is still a place that sells Coconut Smoothies or even have a picture of the stands? Please feel free to answer or even post a picture. It would really be appreciated. Thanks!

 

You are so kind to do this. I also appreciate that you looked at your other pictures to see if you could see it. :):):) Thanks!

Heather

[pghsteelerfan]

Sunset from the secret deck continued...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pghsteelerfan]

You are so kind to do this. I also appreciate that you looked at your other pictures to see if you could see it. :):):) Thanks!

Heather

 

Thank you Heather! :)

 

Holly

[pghsteelerfan]

Sunset from the secret deck continued...

 

 

 

 

 

That's one way to get DH and myself in the same picture

 

[pghsteelerfan]

Sunset from the secret deck continued...

 

 

 

 

 

Hope I'm not making anyone dizzy with those two pictures

 

 

 

 

[pghsteelerfan]

Sunset from the secret deck continued...

 

Going...

 

Going...

 

Gone! We didn't notice any "green flash" tonight

 

Once we’d gotten the sunset pictures, I was still working on that “Funship Special”, the strong one. I was also feeling the effects. DH wanted to go down to get another one and asked if I wanted one. Oh h*** no!!! I had to decline. This one was definitely kicking my butt! One more of Antonio's "Funship Specials" would have been "Funship Down" (or porcelain worshiping) for me...and a "lovely" hangover the next day. No thank you.

 

While he was getting his drink, I finished mine and went and got a cup of coffee instead. We went back up to Panorama Deck 10 to see if “B” and “M” were up there and they weren’t. We walked around and got more pictures while we were up there. Since I had my phone with me this time, I used that to get pictures once it was darker and Liberty’s outside lights were on. They came out much nicer than the DSLR, surprisingly because this is a phone. We were over on the port (left) side and noticed the almost full moon was out, so we got pictures with the moon and it’s reflection on the water in the background.

 

Again, letting pictures do the "talking" here...

 

 

 

 

[pghsteelerfan]

Views of Liberty on our final evening after the sun went down...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2015 by pghsteelerfan

[Anneschmera]

We will be on her exactly 4 weeks from today. I loved your review and all the things we have to look forward too.

[pghsteelerfan]

Views of Liberty on our final evening after the sun went down...

 

 

 

By now it was 6:30pm, so we decided to go back to our cabin to start the packing and get ready for dinner. I grabbed a cup of water from the Lido Deck and took that back to the cabin. Since I was still feeling the effects of the drinks and wanted to prevent any “ill affects” (aka…hangover), I drank a lot of water. It’s not that we drank a lot today, a lot if it was probably because I did not have a full lunch, had been in the sun all day, and that last “Funship Special” was very strong. Drinking a lot of water has helped me avoid feeling the effects in the past and I certainly didn’t want to be feeling any on the last night of the cruise, or heaven’s forbid, the next morning.

 

I attempted to start packing but since I was feeling it, that wasn’t working so I took a nap instead. I slept for about a half hour then got up to give the packing another try. Since we decided that we were going to do self-debark, there was no pressure to get our suitcases out before 11:00pm for the “Relaxed Debarkation”. With “Self Debark”, you keep your suitcases in the cabin with you, but you have to carry them off yourself. We can manage this on our own.

 

DH took his turn getting a shower while I was packing and when he was done, he started his packing while I took my turn. I was still feeling quite “buzzed” and he asked if I was going to make it to dinner. I told him that was my plan and he asked if I wanted another cup of coffee and he’d get it. I let him know that I didn’t want more coffee, but would love a hot chocolate, so he went to the Lido Deck and get me a cup. They have hot chocolate at the drink stations on the Lido Deck, very good hot chocolate I might add. I had the hot chocolate while finishing most of my packing and getting ready for dinner. By then the effects from this afternoon’s drinks were just about gone.

[pghsteelerfan]

We will be on her exactly 4 weeks from today. I loved your review and all the things we have to look forward too.

 

Oh, now I am really jealous. Just kidding. :D It was exactly 8 weeks ago today that we got on Liberty for our cruise and I'm really, really missing it. That's because we had such a great time and met such wonderful friends.

 

I hope you have as great of a cruise on Liberty as we did. Thank you for following along. :)

[pghsteelerfan]

We went down to the dining room at our usual time and got to our table just as our table mates did. We talked about our day in St. Maarten and we were all feeling sad that the cruise was about over. They would be staying in San Juan for a few days after the cruise. I’d love to be able to do that sometime, I think it would be a great way to unwind before having to fly home.

 

Our wait staff came around with the water, bread basket and menus and gave us a few minutes to decide. When Jorge returned, we were all ready to order and placed our orders. Tonight for my appetizer I again had the Caesar Salad (still a definite A); from the main menu I had the Southern Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy (that I give an A). If you’re expecting KFC or Popeye’s chicken, you’re out of luck. This isn’t fast food. For my side I again had the Fragrant Bismanti Pilaf (still and A). I do remember that DH had the Spare ribs, baked beans and cornbread for his main. I would have gotten that since I had it on our Liberty cruise last year and loved it (A for the spare ribs dinner), but I really wanted to try the Southern Fried Chicken. We continued our conversations as we ate.

 

 

 

Once we finished dinner, our wait staff cleared the tables and brought out the dessert menus. Yoki also came by with the tray of cordials in the souvenir shot glasses. Today he had a tray with all of the available colors (blue, green, amber, and clear). Before we selected, I asked Yoki if I could get a picture of him with the tray and he was happy to let me.

 

 

 

I got one of the blue ones and our table mate also got one of the cordials. Before continuing, on this cruise, a member of our wait staff always came by to collect our cordial glasses after we finished and took them back and washed them for us, then returned them. This hadn’t been done on last year’s Liberty cruise or on Valor in 2013, so I don’t know if this is something they just started doing or if it was just our wait staff. We appreciated this because it saved me the time of doing it when returning to the cabin after dinner.

 

Shortly after that, one of our waiters came by for our dessert orders. Tonight I had the Sherbet, but forget if it was orange or lime (those are my favorites). Once dessert was delivered, all of the waiters came out to perform the “I’m Leaving on a Fun Ship” song that they do on the last night of every cruise. This has been done for a long time as it was done even on our first cruise on Carnival’s Festivale in 1992. As soon as they finished that song, they kicked in with the song “Gangnam Style” to leave us on an upbeat note.

 

 

 

 

 

Once their performance was finished, we had time to visit with our table mates and agreed to keep in touch (we have) and our wait staff came by one last time to thank us and hoped that we had a wonderful experience on Liberty and we assured them we did. We all got up and took turns hugging them and thanking them. They were great, as every wait staff we’ve had on Carnival in the past has been. One thing I have noticed from others’ reviews is that some of them have actually seen crew members they’d gotten to know on a previous cruise on another cruise. We have never, ever, seen a Carnival staff member that we’ve had on any of our other cruises. Maybe it’s because we don’t cruise as often as some of the others. I would love to see some of them again on a future cruise…maybe someday. Right after leaving the dining room, we said our goodbyes with our table mates and I let them know I hadn’t forgotten about the Liberty at night picture and would send that to them once I had wifi.

 

[pghsteelerfan]

We went back to our cabin and Kendrick had been there. I forgot to get a picture but tonight we had a “towel heart” left for us on our bed. There would be no “Fun Times” tonight, only the eviction notice…excuse me, I mean the Debarkation Information and our Debarkation Zone luggage tags. We were Zone 14, but again, wouldn’t be needing them since we were doing self-debark.

 

Our "Eviction Notice"...I mean the Debarkation Information (side 1)

 

(Side 2)

 

Our Debarkation Zone 14 luggage tags. Since we were doing the Self Debark, we would not be using them.

 

We changed into more comfortable clothes and tackled the rest of our packing. DH said he wanted to go to the Punchliner Comedy club and I just wasn’t feeling it tonight. At this point, that dry throat was turning into a sore throat, not bad but annoying. He said he was hoping to see the others from “that other” roll call. I wanted to see them too, but at this point, I was feeling cold coming on and didn’t feel like spreading that around the ship, and most of all, not to our friends. I told DH that I certainly wouldn’t mind if he went to the comedy show and told him if he did run into the others, to please tell them “hello” and that I was sorry I missed them.

 

The first show he went to was the 11:15pm show by Tim Young and he said he’d probably stay and see the 12:00am show by Carl Faunlkenberry. I finished my packing and set out what I would need for the next day. I double checked the weight of my suitcase and it was over the 50 pound limit. I needed to do some rearranging, but before I did, I went out on our balcony to see if we were nearing St. Thomas yet. I remember from our Valor cruise being able to see St. Thomas around this same time. We were passing both St. John and St. Thomas, so I spent some time on the balcony getting pictures, or attempting to get pictures. There was definitely some improvement on the pictures I got this time compared to those I got the last time but they still aren’t the greatest. Again, bringing a tripod would help a great deal, but I just don’t feel like hauling that around. Maybe some year that will be important to me, but for now I’m just happy for some OK pictures of the islands at night.

 

This is St. John, USVI

 

St. Thomas and Charlotte Amalie at night

 

Pretty sure this is where the Havensight pier is, where we were docked on Monday when in St. Thomas

 

About 45 minutes after he’d left for the comedy show, DH returned. I thought he’d be staying for the midnight act, but he said that none of the others were down there and…surprise, surprise…he started dozing off. When DH dozes off during a comedy show, he is definitely tired. He also had to finish with his packing but since we could still see St. Thomas, we went out to the balcony so he could get pictures and video. After that, we finished the last of our packing. Once it was done, we checked the weight of both of our suitcases again with my portable luggage scale. DH’s appeared to be just under 50 pounds and mine was still wavering between 48 and 51. I grabbed something else out of there and put it in my carry-on, tried again, and it was hovering between 49 and 50 pounds. That was enough for tonight. If it weighed more than 50 pounds at the airport, then I could do some last minute shuffling then.

 

It was nearing midnight and I had my alarm set for the usual 5:30am to get up tomorrow. I really wanted to see Fort El Morro on our return into San Juan tomorrow, but knew that in order to see it, I’d need to get up on Panorama Deck 10 since it would be on the port (left) side as we came in. On our Valor cruise, I had the alarm set and had the same plan to go to Panorama Deck 10 to see it, but at 5:30am when the alarm went off, I could tell that we were passing the fort that minute and by the time I’d get changed and get up there, it would be too late. There was also no sense in trying to get up any earlier as it would still be dark and pictures probably wouldn’t come out.

We got ready for and got into bed and as I feel asleep, I couldn’t help but think about last week, last Saturday night, at this very time. We were going to bed at the Courtyard in Isla Verde, San Juan, filled with excitement for our upcoming Liberty cruise, the same feeling I had when going to bed on Christmas Eve as a kid.

[pghsteelerfan]

Since I was able to finish up with our day in St. Maarten, I'm going to wrap this up for tonight. It's not over, there is still tomorrow to cover...the dreaded eviction day...OK, debarkation day.

 

[rzyjzq]

Have really enjoyed your review and beautiful pictures. Makes me excited for another cruise so guess I'd better get busy and start planning one. Going to be doing a "family" cruise this next year; just not sure where. Thanks again for taking the time to do such a thorough review!!

Susan

[pghsteelerfan]

Have really enjoyed your review and beautiful pictures. Makes me excited for another cruise so guess I'd better get busy and start planning one. Going to be doing a "family" cruise this next year; just not sure where. Thanks again for taking the time to do such a thorough review!!

Susan

 

I'm glad you're enjoying the review and pictures. I hope you get a cruise booked for next year and hope you have a wonderful time on whichever cruise you choose. There are some really nice itineraries. Again, thank you.

 

Holly

[Beeslilmama]

Snorkeling pictures continued...

 

What kind of camera are you using for the snorkeling? I'm in the market for an inexpensive one for my Pride cruise in February. Thanks!

[pghsteelerfan]

Snorkeling pictures continued...

 

What kind of camera are you using for the snorkeling? I'm in the market for an inexpensive one for my Pride cruise in February. Thanks!

 

I used a Canon Power Shot D20. It's not just an underwater camera and can also be used for land pictures. I know that the Olympus Tough gets high ratings and the quality is also very good & used for land pictures as well. I think Valentinebaby1, who also has a Liberty review of the same sailing, has the Olympus Tough and they got a lot of nice snorkeling pictures. The only downside is that I wouldn't consider either camera cheap. The Canon is around $260 (average) and the Olympus is even more expensive.

 

There is also a Fuji Finepix XP underwater (that gets good pictures) that is less expensive. We still have one of the old ones (they have newer models available now with higher megapixels) and we're still happy with it. The pictures are similar. A lot of times, the water/weather conditions can affect the way pictures come out too.